Battle
It is imperative that before you start to focus on the battle aspect of Kingdoms of Camelot you build a steady and self sufficient economy. Once this is done, building troops to battle other players, conquering wildernesses and raiding barbarian camps will be your next task. Getting to know the UI ...By clicking the "Map" button on the top left of your screen, you will be able to view the world map. The world map is split into provinces which are then split into tiles such as cities, wildernesses and barbarian camps. Kingdoms of Camelot also has something called the mists over certain cities. This is for people who have applied a potion, or who are beginning. This game does have 540,000 occupied game tiles on the map, so while you can see any tile at any time, it is no small chore to find someone among over half a million possible tiles. Click on each map tile to open the Profile window for that tile. Depending on the type of tile you may see options to "Scout", "Attack", "Transport", "Reinforce" or "Reassign" using troops in your current city to send to the target tile. Click on any of these options, and you will open the March Troops window where you set up your army and send them out. You can also access the March Troops window by going to your City view, click on your Rally Point, and select "March Troops". This will open the March Troops window like before, but you will need to set the March Type and Target location for yourself. Player versus Environment (PvE) Scouts are relatively useless in the beginning phase of the game due to their cost. This is one of the reasons scouts are often branded as useless. Further into the game they are quite useful to hide your troops from the enemy. We will get into that later on. If you are a beginner, simply use a single supply troop to attack the field you want to conquer to see what kind of defenses it has. Keep in mind that even if you lose the battle, your knight will return unharmed. If you can't use your knight after they have returned simply press "F5" to refresh your browser and you should be able to access them again. Your first task is to fill up your wilderness slots. The amount of wildernesses you can control depends on the level of your castle. Make sure you own the maximum amount of wildernesses at any given time, since these are cruicial for your success. Since we have gotten started just now, lets assume we have a lvl 1 Castle and as such are able to control a single wilderness. While building your city, you will come to realize that some of the resources such as wood turn out to be scarce. To avoid this we will get us a lvl 1 forest which will boost our wood production by 5%. Wildernesses are protected by armies so to own one, you will have to get rid of these with a sizeable army of your own first, as shown in the tables. Test your army by sending these against a lvl 1 wilderness. If you win the battle without any losses, aim for beating a lvl 2 wilderness and so on. Wildernesses and barbarian camps are a great way to see if the combination of units in your possession work the way you had imagined. If you lose some units, don't worry, you can just rebuild them. Once you have taken some wildernesses under your control and your army grows, you will notice that whatever you do, your food production stays at a minus. This is not only bad because you won't be able to construct anything that requires food anymore but also your army will start deserting if they don't get food. Barbarian camps are like your local supermarket, if you need food, you raid these. A level 1 barbarian camp yields 100k food, a level 2 gives 200k and so on - as well as smaller quantities of other resources. As your army grows you will be able to take on several barbarian camps at the same time to provide a steady food flow. Player versus Player (PvP) Passive Players Now that you have established your wildernesses and have fought some barbarian camps, it is time we look at the players located around our city or cities. It is common courtesy to watch the points of a player for a while before attacking them. Take a piece of paper, note the coordinates and the points of the player located there. Some players wait 24 hours, some 3 days and some a whole week. If the points of the players don't change, chances are they have quit and you have gained a valuable farm which will provide you with all types of resources. * Important note: If you attack a player too often the happiness of their population will drop and they will desert. This will result in lowered resource production which you don't want. Active Players If you wish to attack an active player whose points are raising daily, you will want to know what you are standing against. Attacking a city blindly may result in your army ending up in caltrops, spikes and obliterated by wall-mounted crossbows. This is why scouting and scouts become valuable again. If you attack a player with city defenses with a single militia man you will get information about their defenses but not the army that is stationed there since you would need to beat the city defences first to see these. The better solution in this case is to recruit scouts on the side and to use these to find out the power of the enemy army. Make sure to upgrade your eagle eyes regularly since upgrading this will yield you more information when scouting other players. Once you have scouted out the enemy player, it is now in your hands to decide if an attack would make your time worthwhile. Keep in mind that a city with lvl 9 storehouse and lvl 9 shrinking powder will be able to protect 1,710,000 food, wood, stone and ore. Unfortunately at the current state of the game, it is not possible to find out if the player you are planning to attack has a storehouse or what level this building is. However, once you have researched to level 9 eagle eyes you will be able to see your enemies research levels and they must have a storehouse at or above the same level as their shrinking powder. If you are on the defending side of an attack, it is always helpful to have a higher level watch tower. This will yield you important information which you can forward to your alliance if you need help. IF you ask for help from your alliance, there are a couple things you need to supply or else nobody will be able to help you: * Who is attacking - the name * Where are they attacking from - their coordinates * What units are they sending - their units * How long till arrival - the time (convert to UTC so that others can make their own adjustments, but say how long from message time, as a double check) Ready? Set: Go! Since the introduction of the reports tab in the alliance tab, you will have to be careful about attacking someone in an alliance, because there is a chance that someone from the alliance is watching the reports and will mobilize reinforcements to the city being scouted. So if you want to go it alone, choose a non-allianced city. Another good reason for joining an alliance. Also if you or your alliance comes to a point where your either hit by a bigger alliance, or person than you have the ability to strike at, or you wish to end a war quickly as I found most people tire of them quickly, use what I call total war. Have your Mid might members flood several cities of the enemy while your high might members focus on a couple of those same cities. This is to flood the enemies reports, causing some confusion, while your high might members are cracking open a couple hard to get in cities that were included in the flood attacks. Now, the lower might members are not to be underestimated. Low Might Members can and should take wilds and either keep with mercenaries and traps or release them. Plus Low might Members can help in defense and transportation of resources. This tactic will have a steam roller effect on the enemy. It works real nicely to quickly end wars along with a lack of overall loss of might. Additional Information This is a listing of items and research that will support your army: ........Items that help attack in battle * Gauntlet of Courage will give your knight a temporary 25% combat boost for 7 days. * Blood Lust will give you a temporary 20% attack boost for 24 hours. * Blood Frenzy will give you a temporary 20% attack boost for 7 days. * Barkskin will give you a temporary 20% defense boost for 24 hours. * Stoneskin will give you a temporary 20% defense boost for 7 days. * Green Griffin Wings will decrease the time of one march by 25%. * Red Dragon Wings will decrease the time of one march by 50%. Research * ....Upgrading Poisoned Edge will increases your troops attack by 5% for each level. * ....Upgrading Metal Alloys will increases your troops defense by 5% for each level. * ....Upgrading Featherweight Powder will increases your troops load by 10% for each level. * ....Upgrading Magical Mapping will increases your troops marching speed by 10% for each level. * ....Upgrading Alloy Horseshoes will increases your horseback and siege weapons marching speed by 5% for ....each level. * ....Upgrading Fletching will increases your projectiles range by 5% for each level. * ....Upgrading Healing Potions will increases your troops health by 5% for each level. .........Other * Having a high level knights' hall will help your knight to accumulate experience faster. * Having multiple barracks will shorten your production time of troops. * Having a high level stable will shorten the production time of horseback units. * Upgrading Geometry will increase the speed of construction on siege weapons by 10%. * As of the 2/17/11 Rally point update, players can now recall marches.